Technology Guidelines

Posted by on Apr 9, 2009

guideline

I just had a conversation that really requires quite a bit of reflection.  I’m sure I’ll write a longer, more reflective post on this in the future, but I need some feedback before then just so my head doesn’t explode.

The person I was discussing this with made two main points about things that should be established with technology guidelines.  It was a person I have an incredible amount of respect for, so this is why I’m having such a hard time with the following ideas.

1. The statement was made that all of the data being produced by teachers and students should be housed within a district.  One specific example given was that you shouldn’t allow teachers to use a site like Wikispaces as legally, a district can’t control the data, and thus can’t shut it down should teachers or students do or say something inappropriate.  Same thing for blogs, podcasts, or any other data produced by students.

2. A teacher should never allow a student’s work to be posted if it isn’t entirely free of grammatical or spelling errors.  Their work should be perfect before being shared with the public.  It would be embarrassing to a student, their family and the district if someone else saw their work that had obvious errors in it.

I have so many thoughts on this, but needed to bounce it off someone.  I thought you all would be able to give me good insights about both points.  If you were establishing guidelines for emerging technologies, what approach would you take?

Thanks to Darren Hester for the Flickr image.

38 Comments

  1. Doug Belshaw
    April 9, 2009

    I presume you’re against both points. So am I – for the following reasons:

    1. Data portability, privacy and the public nature of learning cannot be discussed in any real way if everything is kept ‘in-house’. Not to mention the lack of innovation and quality of the software/web apps on offer.

    2. If this were the case, lower-ability students (especially) would either a) never have their work shown, or b) spend all their time polishing their grammar and spelling and getting no other work done.

    Madness. 🙁

    Reply
  2. Thomas Sheppard
    April 9, 2009

    I’m a junior high tech teacher so I can sympathize. I am still not comfortable posting student work unless I can moderate postings and any public comments. Not sure agree about extending this to teachers though. The idea that my school district could have that much control over my online presence would be a form of censorship. At the same time I recognize that mistakes can be made with publishing online (made a few myself), but teachers are professionals and should be treated as such.

    Interesting point about student work and not publishing online unless it is perfect. I always encourage students to edit their work before putting it online, but I don’t expect perfection and I don’t think it would be an honest reflection of their work if I or anyone else fixed it up for them. I know it is a judgement call but if the work is not an obviously embarrassing then it should go up online warts and all. How do you judge progression in a students work if you don’t?

    In either case I am uncomfortable with interference at the district level. Teachers are professionals and should be treated as such.

    Reply
  3. Jeremy Brueck
    April 9, 2009

    While I understand the concern your colleague has expressed, I am going to have to disagree with both points. I think there is a bit more room for discussion surrounding point 1, than point 2 however. In regards to point 2, my main issue is the fact that your colleague is placing too much value on perfection. That mind set is so old school and frankly not at all a value that we should be passing on to our students. No one is perfect. Not teachers, not students, not parents… the list goes on.

    “Perfect work” is not necessarily indicative of a students “learning” or “mastery knowledge.” I am not advocating that we drop spelling and punctuation from the curriculum, but I think it is preposterous to say that student work should not be posted unless it is perfect. Student work should reflect where the student is at developmentally. In some cases this could mean spelling, grammar and punctuation is not “perfect.”

    I have more to say, but I’m a little worried that if I rush to write out my thoughts I may be posting something that is less than perfect:{

    Reply
  4. robert jones
    April 9, 2009

    Yep. Your colleague is telling you how important it is to keep the lid on pandora’s box. We know it’s been open for years.

    Reply
  5. José Picardo
    April 9, 2009

    Seems overly cautions too me. Just a couple of points that jump to my mind as a read the ideas above:

    1) The whole point behind wikis and blogs is that they are group collaboration tools, and that means they are fully editable. If a blog or wiki is abused, the offending post can be easily removed.

    I am also very fond of the educational philosophy behind teaching our students the skills and value of online communication and collaboration. Learning how to deal with the problems here outlined is a part of learning how to use these tools. These are the skills our students are going to need in the real world.

    2) I post voice recordings and pieces of writing that are often contain inaccuracies (I am a modern languages teacher) on our subject blog. The fact that inaccuracies are present affords us a fantastic opportunity to engage in a spot of peer assessment… Why isn’t that correct? How could it be improved?

    I haven’t given this a great deal of thought… literally typing it as I think it. I would love to read your digested, reflected version in the near future 🙂

    Reply
  6. Steve Dembo
    April 9, 2009

    this may be the first time I’ve ever actually used this word, but poppycock!!

    1) If your IT department had a 1:1 ratio with the faculty, then this would be possible. But the reality is that the IT department only has so much time and limited resources. You can’t seriously expect all education within the district to slow down to the rate at which IT can support projects individually. If the teacher or students say something inappropriate, then you deal with it. In ideal world, with a dream IT department, that might work. But in reality, at some point you have to trust your teachers to make smart decisions that are in the best interest of their students’ education. To do anything else simply creates bottlenecks and red tape.

    2) Welcome to the world of perpetual beta (Wikinomics). Learning is messy. There can be significant benefits to sharing the learning process. We are now in a century where things do not need to be a final draft in order to be released in the wild and/or publishable. Example? GMail is still in beta. My favorite solution to this issue is Mario Asselin’s. He asked his students whether they thought there was value in blogging, and how to handle exactly the situation you’re speaking of. They suggested creating a Stamp of Quality. If that stamp is on a blog post or web page, that means it’s the very best work a student has to offer. It has been proofed, it’s a final draft and feel free to judge him or her accordingly. However, if that Stamp is NOT there… well, then maybe the goal of the lesson wasn’t spelling or grammar. Maybe they’re doing a free write and sharing it publicly. Maybe they’re taking notes in math and aren’t proofing it for perfect English. If that Stamp isn’t there, keep in mind that it’s a different type of writing for a different educational purpose. So bear that in mind when reading.

    Sounds like whoever you were talking to has a pretty low opinion of our students, teachers and communities.

    Reply
  7. Chris Harbeck
    April 9, 2009

    I also will assume you are against the 2 points. So am I.

    1. What school division will set aside the time and $$ to have services like wikispaces, blogger and others. These corporations spend the money to make the services easy to use and accessible to a large audience. The maintenance and upgrades of wiki and blog servers is a full time job of many people. Divisions do not have that kind of capital. How often do divisions need to “shut down” student and teacher blogs and wikis. If anything encouraging people to reflect and be creative should be encouraged.

    2. Only perfect work being uploaded. I would say that would be a very time consuming task. I would like to think that students would attempt to use proper language instead of txt language. There is a place for txt but not in an assignment or published work.

    I have students that blog and wiki on platforms that are not based in the division where I work. The stuff they do is of a higher standard than those using the division blog server.

    Thanks for the post. Now please enjoy your weekend!! 🙂

    Reply
  8. Ann Oro
    April 9, 2009

    I have been using a variety of web spaces over the last several years. I’ve been given the opportunity to use many different spaces over the years by my school. I can see control being a big issue in statement one. Would this person feel any better if they were to request a list of the URLs where teachers post student work? Would they want to control user ids and passwords so they could step in and shut something down? I’m trying to equate it to past medias. Newspaper articles and newscasts were very controllable and most student work never left the school building or went any further than home.

    When I first started creating web pages with students using HTML years ago, I did a lot of tweaking to spelling and grammar. I now post most student work as is. I do make sure the language used is appropriate for a piece of school work. The students are clear on that point. In truth, if students had work posted online over the years, it could become a nice portfolio to show the growth of a student.

    I do not have written guidelines, but have been building personal guidelines over time. Again, it’s all been supported by the principal. As other teachers begin to venture online, I share best practices with them.

    The approach I would take is a best practice approach. Provide examples of excellent work (with grammatical and spelling errors) in open online spaces. Hopefully it will provide an overall picture of the possibilities to this person you respect.

    Reply
  9. Claudia Ceraso
    April 9, 2009

    The way I read it is the following:
    1) Scenario 1- School freaks out at the thought of control loss.
    Answer: it’ll happen anyway. You cannot stop it.
    2) Scenario 2 -Embarrasing for whom?
    I teach foreign languages. One of the ideas at school when I first introduced them to the blog idea I had was “what other people think if the school doesn’t correct mistakes. Solution, well, it is a personal project and I wrote my disclaimer there.
    In my classes wiki it is even simpler: we are learning to write and showing all of the process. Mistakes will be there. Period.

    The decision has to be made on whether tech gets into the picture to make old things better -i.e. higher results or…
    Do something new in new ways. Namely, show and certify the learning process, not the results. Too many standardised tests already. No need of new tech to do it better.

    Twitter
    @fceblog

    Reply
  10. Tod Baker
    April 9, 2009

    Regarding point 2, my colleagues and I have been discussing this issue for the past three years. Here’s what we have come up with. Posting or sharing student work creates a space where thinking becomes visual. In this space we can see how students tune in to a topic, discover more about it, sort out its meanings, refine their knowledge, make conclusions, and take some actions. In other words, it’s where the inquiry process unfolds. And that gives invaluable insight for the visitors and powerful reflection for the owner of the shared work. We find more value in discussing the inquiry process than in the polished work. So, yes. A teacher should allow a student to post or share work that has grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. At least, that’s what some of us have come up with.

    Reply
  11. Adina Sullivan
    April 9, 2009

    It’s frustrating to run across someone who can’t let go of the idea that if it can’t be controlled completely, it shouldn’t be allowed in education.

    1) With that logic, what about what a teacher writes in a blog or says when running errands while wearing a shirt with the school emblem. Where are the lines? There is always that rogue person who does something dumb, but where is the trust in the vast majority of people you have hired to teach children?

    2) While I agree that students should be working on producing and publishing work that is of high quality, why stifle ideas and attempts because they aren’t perfect. Those imperfections can become fantastic teaching opportunities. Are they really worried about the child’s and families’ embarrassment or their own?

    I’m about to publish some student Animoto videos on a wiki I created for our school. The kids’ grammar isn’t perfect. The punctuation isn’t perfect. What is important is that the kids learned, experimented, and communicated their ideas in a new way. That WAS perfect.

    Reply
  12. Kidthinkers
    April 9, 2009

    Point 1: Technology is our future and it is the teacher’s job to teach it and teach appropriate use. We learn by mistakes. If someone posts something inappropriate, everyone will learn from it. This type of learning is going to be critical to our collective future. Districts must give teachers leeway to incporporate technology as much as possible and as broadly as possible. No supervision necessary. Broad guidelines ok.

    Point 2: WE can’t protect children from making mistakes. That is how we learn. We can protect identities by posting with usernames that are not generally known to the public. But, expecting kids to be perfect is insane.

    Reply
  13. Lori
    April 9, 2009

    1. Teach appropriateness, copyright, etc when district employees and students are posting, to avoid issues when publicly posting.

    2. Sharing work online is valuable for students to feel proud of their work, to give back to the community, to share their writing with an audience greater than their classroom. Students should be able to post, even with mistakes. If I only posted what was “perfect” I would hardly share student work at all. Not everything we do in life needs to be perfect in order to be “publishable” Aren’t we supposed to learn from our mistakes?

    Reply
  14. Will Richardson
    April 9, 2009

    To statement #1: Once something is published to a Web server for public viewing, you cannot take it back. In all likelihood, it will live on in someone’s cache, somewhere. The alternative, to keep all student created work private to the district, flies in the face of most major learning organizations (NCTE, NCSS, etc.) stated position to teach and support students’ ability to create and connect content for global audiences and collaborations. Therefore, your kids will be “left on the sidelines” (2009 Horizon Report.)

    To statement #2: What Kidthinkers said. That, and “oh, please.”

    Reply
  15. dave cormier
    April 9, 2009

    I have one question for your friend.

    What do you think education is? because if you think it has anything to do with preparing kids… then you are doing it wrong.

    Reply
  16. Ant Heald
    April 9, 2009

    “A teacher should never allow a student’s work to be posted if it isn’t entirely free of grammatical or spelling errors.” What about errors of design and typography? Or errors in image selection, animation or video editing? It’s telling that the objections are to transgressions of traditional literacy.

    How many times must many of us have seen someone deliver a presentation to parents or colleagues backed by a perfectly spelled and grammatically accurate PowerPoint that detracted from their message with busy background images, distracting text animations, and a flat delivery stymied by slavish adherence to the text on the slides? If I were looking to establish a ‘quality control’ agenda I think I’d be starting there, and with some of the poor quality online resources provided (at great expense) by educational publishers, rather than expecting perfection from students.

    Reply
  17. Donna Bills
    April 9, 2009

    1. If a teacher refused to shut down an inappropriate blog or wiki project connected with the educational program of a school district, wouldn’t the teacher be reassigned or fired?

    2. Wouldn’t the guidelines for posting student work depend on the project and the age of the student? We publish first grade letters to Santa in the local paper in all their glorious childish construction. As long as a site clearly depicts the age or grade level of the students and the purpose and expectations of the projects, viewers should be able to understand the context.

    Reply
  18. dtitle
    April 9, 2009

    1) When did the needs of teachers being served by tech become lost and mutate into teachers must deal with whatever makes the district techs job easier? I am sick and tired of teachers having to go through tech services for everything, bending and bowing because we can’t do anything without their blessings and or consent. Administration and district tech has simply locked teachers completely out of the loop. The control of software and blocking/banning of sites is bad enough. Now we are looking to lock up the students work as well? This attitude to control everything, and teachers and students be damned, is going to take us down a road no teacher will want to travel. See that sign post up ahead? We seem to be entering the Anal/Compulsive zone.

    2) Pardon mon français, mais WTF? I constantly see errors in published professional works, and we expect perfect work from students who for all intents and purposes are rank amateurs? As a teacher and as a parent, I expect to see errors, and then have our students learn from those errors. Of course we should try to avoid work that is horribly incompetent, rife with errors of punctuation and spelling, things that would embarrass both student, parent and teacher. But OMG… to expect perfect work from students when PhDs have trouble doing the same is a far cry from reality. I believe people with attitudes like this care little about substance and nothing about what students are trying to say and only care about image. I can do with out these Sergent Sphincter of the Dirt Patrol types! (apologies to Firesign Theater)

    Reply
  19. Steve Ransom
    April 9, 2009

    Neither of those two ideas seem all that democratic to me. Control content. Only perfection is worthy of examination, discussion, exhibition,… Although this way is rather safe and tidy, it doesn’t inspire anyone. In addition, if what we value most in student produced content is the grammar and spelling, then we are sorely being deceived.

    Reply
  20. Kyle Stevens
    April 9, 2009

    To start, I am glad that my school not only allows me to use the sites that your conversation partner feels should be restricted but encourages their use. The primary reason is that since uses such sites in my courses the quality of content submitted and writing by my students has improved. One of the main reason this has occurred is because my students realize that their audience is no longer just me and the trash can. Regarding errors, I feel that is their responsibility. While I grade and evaluate their writing for proofreading, I intentionally do not edit typos or grammatical errors. It bothers me that people feel that anything less than perfection is bad. How else will we improve if others cannot witness our mistakes. If I feel a student is writing content that is not appropriate, I will not publish their work and will speak to that student. However, student feel more inclined to improve their writing and correct errors when his or her classmates read the work than if only I am reading the work.

    Reply
  21. David Sladkey
    April 10, 2009

    1. Our district is very much in favor of the first point you made that student work (and teacher work) should be housed within district. I am in favor of having student and teacher work opened up to the world. However, I do know there are safety issues. And I think the safety issues get to be overwhelming. They get to the point that it is a lot less work to keep it all contained than opening it up.
    I kind of think that school districts are going to go the route of social networking. A district might share their work with other “friend” districts, or people. In this way, a district can control where their information can go. And just like a social network, if their “friend” is not really friendly, they can stop the sharing with them.
    Most of all, I feel your quandary. I don’t think it is an open and shut case. I think technology does go a little slower in education because we have to consider how it impacts our students before we try it.
    2. The fear of failure is a great inhibitor. Let’s not put that expectation of perfection on our students.

    Reply
  22. Ben Grey
    April 10, 2009

    Thank you everyone for such excellent and quick feedback. It’s good to know that I wasn’t entirely off base when I vehemently disagreed with the person during our conversation. I plan to reflect some more on this and respond in another post, but just for your reference, here’s the gist of my responses during the discussion.

    1. I simply don’t see how we can expect to house all data students will create on our own network. I do understand the trepidation of those who are ultimately responsible for managing and securing a district’s network, but at some point, we have to let teachers be responsible for their decisions and be accountable if they want to take the risks. Meaning, if they want to take responsibility, we should let them try things outside our network. I probably need to talk with a lawyer on this regarding the legal implications, but at this point, I think we need to keep empowering those we are trusting to care for our children on a daily basis. I used the playground analogy in the discussion that there is simply no way we can see and hear every single thing each student says while out on the playground, but we still let them go out and play. Inappropriate things are said and done, but a good system will teach students through those situations. That’s exactly what we should be allowing to happen with our digital learning experiences as well.

    2. I was flummoxed over this one. Like many of you noted, when done well, learning is messy. I absolutely believe we have to let students take risks and fail. I made the point that I learned the guitar by trying and failing. I still play in front of people, and make plenty of mistakes, but it’s that exact experience that allows me to find motivation and cause to improve. I could write a whole lot more here, but I’ll just say it again, when done well, learning gets messy.

    Thanks for all the excellent thoughts and ideas. I’ll be ruminating this one for a good, long while.

    Reply
  23. Lee
    April 12, 2009

    To item #1: If ALL I was interested in was protecting my school district from litigation, then I would have to agree. (How sad that the attorneys are driving our education system.)

    To item #2: Teachers who won’t publish anything unless it’s perfect are more concerned about how the work reflects on them as teachers.

    Reminds me of our Science Fair a few years back when I was teaching elementary school. All the teachers on my grade level had our students create science fair projects leading up to a final day where the parents would come in and tour the classrooms. (The parents would tour all of the classrooms, not just their own kids’.) Every day after school the other teachers were hard at work, cutting out templates and creating samples and preparing to give the kids a few choices of projects with which to work (these kids were old enough mind you). I, on the other hand, let the kids do their thing. The final projects in all the other classes, were beautifully put together project-board displays with lovely signage and borders, perfectly straight lines and everything just perfectly put together. When our grade-level chair walked into my classroom and saw OUR projects, she literally GASPED. She was horrified to see the project boards that were clearly “student created.” Yes, some were beautifully put together and neatly drawn and computer printed – mostly the girls’, but most were drawn on with magic marker and the graphs were hand-written and the construction paper might have been a little faded.

    I knew the other teachers (and probably the parents in the other classrooms too) were thinking that we all did a lousy job on our projects, but the truth is, they did them themselves! And, I made sure the kids did their best with proofreading and handwriting, but the goal was understanding the scientific method; and my kids got that! I think it’s important for kids (all of us) to understand that their work does not have to be perfect in order for it to be worthy of sharing.

    Great post!

    Reply
  24. Mike Arsenault
    April 12, 2009

    Thanks for sharing this post. It’s amazing to me how many IT departments in schools wish to “control” everything. The whole point to many of these tools is that students produce products for an authentic audience. We can’t control everything that happens in schools. If we live in the constant fear that someone might do something bad we’re in a pretty sad state. If something happens it should be used as a teachable moment. I have found that students take extreme offense to someone sabotaging their online projects. Shutting down this sort of work is short sighted and completely discounting the power of having students taking ownership of their learning.

    Reply
  25. Cindy Seibel
    April 13, 2009

    Just one quick comment – beware the use of the word “data”. I wouldn’t refer to student work as data. Data about students does need to be protected. This personal information (demographics, assessments, reports) is protected by law.

    Works produced by students is another matter. I think if we separate these the conversation with the IT department will take on a different tone. When lumped together, the notion of “protection” goes to the highest common denominator, and that is not the open, connected learning enviroment that many seek.

    Reply
  26. Cindy Seibel
    April 13, 2009

    Addendum: Please see my blog post about content filtering – http://blog.tech4learning.ca/2008/04/content-filtering-a-technical-solution-not-decision/ – for a further discussion about this issue.

    Reply
  27. Miguel Guhlin
    April 13, 2009

    I shudder to think I could add anything to the points expressed here, but I have attempted to online at http://tinyurl.com/chx99m

    With appreciation,
    Miguel Guhlin
    Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org
    http://mguhlin.org

    Reply
  28. wmchamberlain
    April 13, 2009

    1. The school district doesn’t own the content. The students do. If the school takes it down it is akin to intellectual theft.

    2. Do they plan on burning books that have typographical errors as well.

    When will people quit thinking of students as indentured servants with no rights? (Including the right to make mistakes!)

    Reply
  29. Darren Kuropatwa
    April 13, 2009

    We all seem to be saying the same thing, hands down, most succinct comment about the whole thing goes to Dave Cormier above.

    Reply
  30. Carolyn Foote
    April 13, 2009

    My issue here–that it doesn’t address learning as an ‘ongoing’ open process.

    The focus is on the product, and what it looks like and who controls it. But we all know that learning is about the process–about learning what we don’t know, of sharing our ideas, and of making mistakes and learning from them.

    In a perfectly controlled environment, can that sort of messy learning happen?

    Reply
  31. Stephanie Anderson
    April 13, 2009

    This is a similar sentiment to my district, who is trying with all their might to control everything coming and going, even thought the IT department is literally 5 guys. They want teachers to use and integrate tech, but only with permission and it just doesn’t work that way.

    The idea of a district wanting control is nothing new, it is the second point that I would like to address: What makes for innovation and creativity is the ability to be OK with imperfection. Sometimes that means spelling errors and grammar errors. So what? If you re-enforce the idea that it should be perfect before ever letting anyone see it then you are setting a student up to NEVER finish anything, and as a teacher of the gifted I can tell you this is a HUGE mistake! As humans we learn by trying and failing, again and again and again. And it’s not just how to get it right that we are learning, it is also how to persevere, how to deal with failure, and how to change and grow through our attempts.

    When you come from a perspective that only what is perfect is worthy, you eliminate all of the good stuff because those kids, the ones who are truly brilliant, are never even going to try.

    Tell your friend to be careful, what he are asking for is mediocrity.

    Reply
  32. Grace Finn
    April 14, 2009

    Yes, the issue of control is everywhere. It seems that many IT professionals will simply block blogs making decisions for the schools when they do not have the education backgrounds to make these decisions. The teachers are not being treated as professionals, but as children who do not know better.
    Blogs could be very useful and they should be monitored by the teacher – they represent a product of learning. Students can read and comment on the writings of each other. A good example is: http://areallydifferentplace.org/

    Reply
  33. CHollingsworth
    April 14, 2009

    In regards to #2 – does the school prohibit a less than ready football team to take the field? Or a band that has a few students who don’t quite hit all the notes correctly still perform a concert? When you hear the 6th grade band perform, it may not be perfect, but everyone understands they are still learning and growing in this skill. Is it not the same for academic learning? It should be put into the context of learning, which involves making (and learning to correct) mistakes.

    Reply
  34. Carl Anderson
    April 14, 2009

    Lets apply these rules to another facet of our schools:

    1. Athletic teams should not be allowed to play away games, school clubs should not be allowed to take trips, classes should not be allowed to go on field trips, student work should not be allowed to be published in anthologies printed by private organizations, and school newspapers and yearbooks should only be printed at school because when students or their work leaves our walls we can’t control how others might influence them.

    2. Students should not be allowed to play team sports unless they have perfected their game, students should not be allowed to ask questions because it might reveal something deficient either in a student’s capacity or knowledge thus embarrassing them, only kids with perfect complexion and who are not too fat or too skinny and only those who have nice hair should be allowed to be in the yearbook because the ugly ones might be embarrassed, and only pleasant stories should appear in our school newspaper because we don’t want anyone to get upset.

    Reply
  35. Susan Carter Morgan
    April 15, 2009

    1. I just had a fascinating discussion with my class about the use of “damn” in a post that read something like, “damn, that line from Frankenstein jumped out at me” from a 14 year old. We used the class time to talk about language, meaning, and audience. Wouldn’t have happened without blogs and wikis being open and available.
    2. Process, not product = learning

    Reply
  36. S Ardis
    April 15, 2009

    There has been a bit of debate about these topics in my district. Not necessarily from the IT area but from the teachers and principals themselves who are unsure about these new technologies and what publishing on the web is and can be. To prepare our teachers, we have discussed and this year installed internal wikis, blogs, moodle so they can learn the lingo and experience these technologies.

    We have talked about giving these staff and their students an opportunity to publish in a safe, closed environment so we can encourage them to publish in a public way next year as we redesign our schools site and hope to have forums for families, blogs for various departments. The first conversations were interesting – people really do have a lot of misunderstandings about the technology now readily available and the real necessity for students to have these opportunities.

    Reply
  37. Doug Sawyer
    April 15, 2009

    I’m late to the discussion but here are my thoughts.

    1. This point goes with all the other “new media /technology” issues. In US education we are so worried about liability the first instinct is to BAN IT! I always go back to the same argument. How often do kids do /say inappropriate things on the playground at recess time. The answer is A LOT. However, we do not ban the playground or recess. Grant it much of the inappropriate playground behavior is either overlooked, ignored, or not noticed because the whole world doesn’t have access to it. When something does happen out there that is substantial it is dealt with by enforcing already established consequences and the student(s) involved are allowed to attend recess again, eventually. With these new medias / technologies, we need to establish rules and guidelines and enforce consequences when these rules are broken. Taking away or banning the opportunity to use the technology is not the way to go.

    2. The person who believes this suffers from what I call The Monica(Friends reference) syndrome. That is they probably have some form of OCD. Does every other part of their life have to be perfect as well? It’s not “normal” to always be perfect and in an educational environment insisting on absolute perfection is doing nothing but discouraging learning.

    Having vented that I also wonder if this isn’t the result of internet publishing being in it’s infancy. We have had hard copy print long enough that we have solid categories established. For example, if you put several types of print in front of a person they will be able to categorize them very quickly just by the look of them. Novels, tabloids, pop culture magazines, student work, academic journals, and non-fiction books all have a developed a distinct look to them. On the internet it is much more difficult to distinguish what type of material we are reading. In fact, it is much easier to publish something that is completely untruthful and make it appear to be well researched and real. So, my point here is that I would expect more errors when reading a hard print version of student work or even a tabloid that I would in a well edited novel nor a academic journal written by a PHD. It should be the same on the internet.

    Reply
  38. Monday Morning Roundup | Tips by Tony
    April 27, 2009

    […] Technology Guidelines […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Tod Baker

Cancel Reply